Jerry Hsu is too smart for us. We knew we weren’t gonna dig up any crazy rumors or outlandish trash talking here, so we went for the fall back route: a boat load of stupid questions. The lovable Asian answered back minimally and not too seriously, which is just the magic of Jerry Hsu. Enjoy our deep philosophical discussions on breaking his dick, internet stalkers and leaving his girlfriend fart voicemails. Thanks Jerry.

Would you consider yourself a hipster?
That’s a funny question because everyone is always like, making fun of me for being a hipster but I don’t know if I know what that means and I don’t know if they know what that means.

You know what a hipster is.
I’m a 30 year old guy that skates. Not too hip.

Have you ever taken a nut shot or damaged your reproductive organs on a slam?
Totally, I’ve pulled my pants down after slamming and nutting on a rail and my balls are just like black and blue.

How does that work. Do you piss blood? You go see a doctor or just wait it out and it goes away?
No, it just goes away. I’ve pissed blood before but I’ve never pissed blood from nutting on a rail. It’s always like slamming on your kidneys, on your side that will make you piss blood. Its kind of funny, I was with Leo Romero and one time I did that and I was really worried. I told him and he was just like, “oh dude, you’re fine, you’re just hammering your kidneys, after 2 or 3 pisses you’ll be fine.” He was absolutely right. By the 3rd piss it was completely normal again.

I heard when you were 14 you broke your penis?
Yeah, I pretty much broke my dick when I was 13 or 14. I tore my urethra from credit carding, like Stacy Lowery in that old 411. That really fucked me up, that was a pretty harsh injury for a 13 year old to go through. I was pissing blood and weird little mucusy chunks were coming out. I was screaming and crying. It was my mom’s birthday.

Were there any long term repercussions?
My dick was amputated. Nah, my wiener still works like it’s supposed to.

Have you had any weird stalkers?
Yeah, I have all kinds of weird internet ones, for like every format. There’s a Tumblr one, a Twitter kid, stalkers on Instagram and stuff. In every format there’s always 1 really creepy one that sticks out.

Who’s the craziest?
The Tumblr stalker is the heaviest, on levels where my girlfriend gets scared for me. This one kid copies my Tumblr and like if I change the color or font he changes his Tumblr accordingly. He tries to recreate my photos and he posts my photos, and it’ll look as if he took them but they’re actually mine. He will find a random t-shirt that I have, or a weird Supreme hat from 4 years ago and have photos of himself wearing the stuff. I don’t really understand it. He’s definitely the one that will most likely kill me one day. But on the other hand its really fascinating to check in on his fanaticism.

”He’s definitely the one that will most likely kill me one day.”

Do you talk with him?
At first he would write me messages and I would respond because it seemed innocent. Just like a fan who wants questions answered about skating and photography. But then I started to notice this transformation into a super crazy fan and I stopped responding. I still get messages. If he sees I have a tattoo, he will recreate it with pen on his arm, and put it on his Tumblr. Now he’s gonna get tattoos that I have? That is just the most frightening thing ever. But also amazing.

Is he Asian?
He’s white. If weird Asian kids might do something like that, I would have like a little bit more of an understanding I guess, because you know how Asians are they always want to stick with Asians. I remember growing up in an Asian community and first question is always, “what kind are you?” Always this weird segregation from other races that the parents totally promote.

Are there any things you took away from growing up skating with Marc Johnson?
The number one thing is his work ethic. I would watch him skate and he would never give up and would try his hardest, and eventually he would do it after hours and hours and hours or even like, days. That was cool to see as a 15 or 16 year old because it was like, oh, this is how people skate. I think if you are young and you grow up with people that just give up really quickly, that is just a part of your lexicon of skating. That’s how you view filming tricks. I see that a lot I see kids that are like, “I’m over it,” and just give up. And it just seems so early, like you’re giving up already?

Marc is also a really intelligent and skeptical person. Even when I first met him he was like 19 or 20 but he already seemed like he was in his late 30’s. He always warned me about people wanting to take advantage of you, skate companies and stuff. He would always tell me about experiences that he had, just like watch your back. Because these people just want to use you for your talents and be careful. Little secrets about what big companies really want with little kids who know how to skate. He was really smart wit that kind of stuff. He’s always been a little bit paranoid, which is good, and he would pass that on to me.

Tell me about this photo and if you actually got compensation from your sponsors for the ad?
Yeah, probably about half of them did actually pay me photo incentive for that ad so that was pretty cool. It was just a joke we came up with because I was talking to Matt [Eversole] about how a lot of sponsors kinda like come down on you about putting stickers on your board and I really hate doing that. I don’t ever put stickers on my board. Some people are like billboards, and will put every sponsor on bottom of it, which I think is kinda ugly in a lot of ways. So we came up with this idea like, why don’t we just do an ad, making fun of peoples obsession with photo incentives and logos.

What do skaters make on average per photo incentive?
I can’t really speak for everyone, it’s like a couple hundred bucks but it also depends on the caliber of your sponsor and how well you can see a logo. And then there are other stipulations like if it’s on a cover, if it’s 1 page, 2 pages or a quarter page. They have these photo incentive contracts that are all written out for you. Also for different magazines you get paid different amounts. Certain magazines have higher circulation. It’s really calculated how they pay people to do that shit. It’s kind of funny, I could really make a lot more money if I just like wore logo t-shirts and put stickers on my board and stuff, but I just really hate doing it. Sorry, sponsors.

Do you get bummed out when you see friends or people whore themselves out?
Oh no, I don’t really care. My friends put stickers on their board all the time and they’re just stoked on their sponsors. That’s awesome. I just don’t like the messiness, like the aesthetic of the board. It’s just too distracting to me I just start to hate the board, my brain becomes too cluttered or something. It’s a really whiny thing to say, but I just have to have my board a certain way.

So do you kinda have “madness” or ADD?
I guess compared to certain people I don’t, like I don’t have any type of ritual. But one thing I do is when I’m trying a trick and walking back to the top to start again, I do have to kinda go the same way. I have to walk around polls the same way, I can’t go off course. I pretty much have to do everything the same, but nothing like tap the board 3 times or anything like that. It depends how angry I am. The angrier I become the weirder I become. That’s when I start talking to myself and all sorts of stuff.

Did Jake Phelps get mad about this Enjoi “Why doesn’t my boyfriend skate” T-shirt?
Well this is the thing, that was just promo. We didn’t sell that shirt, it was just a giveaway. I know they caught wind of it cause Jake called me about 5 times, but I don’t know why he didn’t just call Matt who made the shirt. I had to defend some random shirt I didn’t make. Jake banned us for a second but that didn’t last. We’re too lovable.

What’s the deal, you love cats?
I’m not obsessed with cats but I just thought doing lots of stuff with cats would be cool because skaters didn’t really do that. So I just started coming out with cat stuff. At the time it was just Zero, and skulls, knives, daggers and blood and I was just like, cats are cool, let’s just do cat graphics. I see a lot of cat stuff everywhere now, I invented cat stuff in skateboarding [laughs].

Do you jerk off before you skate or keep it loaded?
If I jerk off and then try and go skate, it’s pointless. I think it’s mostly psychological, like my energy’s gone. I’ve straight up told girls that I can’t do it until I get home. I take those video part deadlines seriously, girls just want to mess around and I’m like, I can’t.. really.

”If I jerk off and then try and go skate, it’s pointless.”

Why do you smoke cigarettes?
I ate too many pot brownies one night and I was high for 3 days. Like go to sleep, wake up high, go to sleep all high again. I thought my life was over, like acid trip never coming back type shit. Just imagine that feeling for 3 days, and not wanting it. When your high and you don’t want to be high, it’s the worst feeling ever. I was 21 or 22. All my friends smoked cigarettes, and I kinda just picked up the habit from all the anxiety from that experience of being retarded and eating too much weed. Now I fucking smoke cigarettes and it’s the worst.

I smoked cigarettes as a little kid just here and there just like to be cool or whatever. But I didn’t really smoke until that time. That was when I immediately started smoking a pack a day, just stressing and chain smoking. I woke up on the 3rd morning and the high wore off and it’s like, oh thank you!

Are you the type of guy that feels comfortable farting in front of their girlfriend?
Me and my girlfriend fart on each other all the time. I’ll send her a voicemail of me farting, and she’ll send one back. She’s pretty much the ideal woman.

Comments

I am surprised more companies don’t do “sticker sponsor” paint jobs. It could be like Nascar or Race Replica BS. Straight out of Idiocracy.

That being said, Hsu’s Enjoi version looks awesome. No shame in a big fat Emerica logo on top. And who can hate on Bones Swiss. He sure has great support. What a blessing to have MJ’s insight and guidance.

A couple months ago Jerry was in Australia at an Enjoi demo. It was raining and he was the only one skating which was the raddest thing ever. my friends and I decided to buy him a bag of rice as a joke and to show some appreciation for his efforts. I think he took it seriously and got offended. After that he sat in the van for the rest of the demo. Needless to say I felt terrible. I’ll think twice before approaching a pro at a demo again.